


Fifteen Moments of Vi

by SolarPoweredFlashlight



Category: League of Legends
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 16:44:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1825231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolarPoweredFlashlight/pseuds/SolarPoweredFlashlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fifteen snapshots of varying length that capture the development of Vi's relationship with Caitlyn, seen through Vi's point of view, from their first meeting to a relationship that has endured the test of years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fifteen Moments of Vi

**The Job Offer**

Vi’s been hunted before.

She’s a crook, she’s known her fair share of quiet alleyway chases and heart-hammering wall-bursting pursuits.

One time she stole this incredibly cool collection of electrified throwing knife prototypes from an illegal arms dealer, and made the mistake of being too obvious in her MO. The people he sent after her were no cops, although they were definitely professionals. Those were the days she’d been truly, genuinely afraid for her life. She’d had to kill them eventually. She wasn’t proud, but she was alive.

This night brings her back to those nights with far too much clarity. This night feels too much like those nights.

Except this time she has no idea who’s hunting her. She has no reason to think it might be The Famous Sheriff of Piltover - and so the thought doesn’t even cross her mind.

It’s been years since the arms dealer gave up, so she doesn’t think it’s his people. What unnerves her isn’t that she can feel the hunter closing in; it’s that she doesn’t even feel like she’s posing her pursuer any kind of challenge.

It starts one day with her routine being interrupted – stupid, she’s so stupid, having a routine is the best way to get nailed – when the girl at the coffee stand she’s only a little besotted with gives her the usual with a side of caution.

“Someone’s looking for you. Came here asking about you. Said she was a friend.”

Friend, huh? Vi’d have to make sure to greet her with a friendly handshake.

Next there’s something off about her apartment. She can’t put her finger on it but she doesn’t so much as step inside the front door before she turns back around and gives up on the personal belongings beyond. Not worth it, she breathes to herself, not worth it to walk into a trap.

She has backup plans to accommodate for this situation, after last time, but suddenly they fall through. People she counted on turn her away, buildings she felt safe in set off all her warning bells. Vi sleeps one or two hours with her gauntlets on and then moves to somewhere new. She expects a confrontation soon, a set of footsteps behind her when she makes a wrong turn, the glint of a scope in a window three stories above her – something, anything. Her knuckles start to blister from never being out of the gauntlets.

The slow, desperate choking sensation drives her mad with panic. She picks an enemy at random, decides she’s the culprit, and breaks into the smuggler queen’s safehouse to demand she call off the assassin. Vi breaks some doors and some noses and feels better for it, and then, happy to say anything to get Vi out of her face, the mob boss agrees to call off this assassin Vi is so sure she’s responsible for.

Vi goes back to one of her hidey-holes, feeling smug, and sleeps a whole two hours. Exhausted, she doesn’t even hear the intruder deftly counter her door’s simple lock and let herself into the room. She _does_ hear the sound of the gun being loaded, although she has no way to know the sheriff’s trigger finger is readied to launch a net, not a bullet.

If you believe the official press release, it was a pretty simple process. Sheriff hears tales of some heart-of-gold criminal, offers criminal a job, criminal accepts and becomes certified do-gooder.

Thing is, sheriff’s gotta _find_ the criminal first.

The press release never mentions the black eye she earned for all her hard work.

 

**Hextech**

She’s insulted the first time she catches Caitlyn scrutinizing her gauntlets with that unreadable expression and those overly attentive eyes. She’d have been insulted by anything less than awe, of course, but her fists are more than her weapons, they’re the better part of a decade of iteration, of perfection, of destruction and rebuilding, malfunction and repair. They’re cobbled together from the best parts of the worst technology, made from anything she’s been able steal from the lowlifes and the scumbags of the city.

And they’re amazing. Nothing like them in Piltover – nothing like them in Runeterra, she’d happily wager. There’s raw skill and the elbow grease of a thousand hours in every effortless clench of those metal grips, and if this sheriff with her fancy, delicate, state funded gadgets can’t see that, she can go drink a steaming hot mug of Noxian sewage.

So when Caitlyn turns her attention away, Vi bristles for the rest of the day and then forgets about it. She hasn’t survived this long by being touchy, and if her new boss wants to be a snob, that’s just fine. Doesn’t stop her from doing what’s important to her, so whatever.

The next time she thinks about it, it’s a few months later and they’ve been working a case for seventeen hours straight. They’re going over clues in the office - well, Cait’s going over clues. Vi is listening to her think out loud and grunting here and there in acknowledgment, running over the last chase in her mind. Something’s bothering her about the way it played out – aside from the fact that the crook got away – and she’s staring at the chair in the corner where she’s piled her gauntlets. Cait’s put her rifle down on top of them, which is a clear sign she’s getting tired, because she’s normally very particular about keeping it close and storing it properly.

Now that she’s thinking about it, actually, she may have landed on what was bothering her about that last fight.

Vi rises from the chair she’s been slumped in and crosses the room to pick up the rifle. She carries it to a corner and curls up with it on the floor, since Cait’s desk is occupied, and begins to deftly turn it over and fiddle with its many moving parts. She’s got the trigger mechanism disassembled and laid out very carefully in front of her when the boss finally notices.

“What are you doing?” There is a coldness, an edge, a threat there that Vi doesn’t much like being on the receiving end of.

“Your gun’s hextech parts were making a weird noise an hour ago,” she says, with a nonchalance that is pure bravado. Her eyes are locked on the parts because suddenly not screwing this up is something she – _she_ , who has been stripping and manipulating hextech gear since she was ten – is very concerned about.

Caitlyn has this tendency to look at everything with an intensity that Vi finds uncomfortable, and now she feels a gremlin in her stomach pulling determinedly on her heart and lungs at the thought of it being focused on her steadily working hands.

“See, look, this cog was jammed. Something misaligned it. It just needs a little readjustment, maybe a new washer in here.” Her voice isn’t shaking but she feels like it is. Caitlyn’s silence is more accusing than anything she could possibly say. Why did she think this was a good idea, taking apart the boss’s gun? She might as well be performing open heart surgery on her firstborn child. “Yep, see?” she pulls out a tiny bronze washer with the most minute of bends to a surface that should have been perfectly flat and holds it up, triumphant, in the moment before she finally dares to meet the sheriff’s gaze.

They stare each other down, and Vi is absolutely one hundred percent determined to pretend she’s not afraid of consequences, she’s not afraid of Caitlyn. The few short months they’ve been working together have given her every reason to respect her skill as a marksman, even if she doesn’t always agree with her wastefully gentle methods. Vi’s pride rallies inside of her. If she wants to fight her over a bent washer, she’s got the advantage in close quarters, especially with Cait’s weapon of choice a pile of parts on the floor.

“You’re right,” her boss says, doing a halfway decent job of pretending not to be surprised when she eyeballs the problem piece. “Let me see if I can find a replacement.” She turns to the desk and begins rummaging through drawers.

The tension leeches from the room and Vi relaxes muscles she hadn’t known were so ready for a fight.

“I know what I’m doing,” she blurts.

“Apparently,” Caitlyn retorts.

Once Vi finishes putting the gun back together, Caitlyn at least has the tact to wait until she leaves for a bathroom break before she checks, double-checks and triple-checks that everything is as it’s supposed to be. When Vi returns, Caitlyn’s looking at the gauntlets in a different sort of way.

 

 

**Old Green Punching Bag**

“Lower your shoulders a little, Cupcake,” Vi instructs, scrutinizing from off to the side. “Power comes from here,” she whacks her own gut, “not here,” another demonstrative whack to her muscular, vibrantly inked shoulder.

Caitlyn deliberately and consciously (maybe even self-consciously, and imagine that, thinks Vi, the Sheriff, _insecure_ about something) pushes her shoulders lower for the next few swings. The ragged punching bag, a shade of faded green that might have been vibrant half a decade ago, flies wildly on its chain.

“That’s good,” Vi says, “try to relax a little more, try not to hit so hard. You don’t need that much power.”

Caitlyn smirks at her, her stance easing up just a smidgeon. “Did the Vi I know really just say the phrase ‘try not to hit so hard’?”

Vi flashes a grin back at her that is alive with joy. She’s liking this way too much – not just because it’s interesting that Caitlyn is trusting her with this vulnerability, not just because she gets to show off for the beautiful, clever, compassionate woman she absolutely totally does not have a crush on, but because this afternoon’s lesson has been full of easy banter and motivating breakthroughs.

She feels like Caitlyn respects her, and while she’s felt that way for a while now, being asked to help her with honing her hand-to-hand skills is something concrete.

“Can I show you?” Vi asks, still grinning, and Caitlyn moves out of the way and drops her arms.

Vi takes up position at the bag and falls easily into the familiar stance, holding up a guard and trying not to distract herself with thoughts of whether Caitlyn is watching her technique or her arms and shoulders, freed of the gauntlets and exposed by her sleeveless workout shirt.

“What you want to do is apply the power at the very last moment,” Vi says, readying herself for a strike. “You stay loose and focus on getting your fist to where it needs to be quickly, and right when it’s there is when you throw strength into it.” She hits the bag a few times, hoping her explanation is good enough. “If you’re tensed up and investing power in a punch through the whole thing, you tire yourself out more, you swing too wide, and you don’t hit as fast.” Vi throws some over-wrought punches and the bag wobbles dramatically. “Make sense?”

Caitlyn nods. Her face is blank for a while – a face that means she’s processing information – and then she smiles. Vi backs away from the bag and gives Cait the spot back.

The Sheriff, her long hair pulled back into a pony tail and her usual outfit replaced by the tank top and shorts she wears jogging, regards the bag evenly as she settles into the stance again – deliberate, conscious. It’ll take time before her muscles know it better than her mind does, but that’ll come if she keeps up the practice, Vi figures.

Her eyes follow a loose strand of long, dark hair to a flushed collarbone. Vi really hopes she keeps up the practice.

Thup! Thup! Thup!

“Yeah!!” Vi shouts, watching the punches strike with greater accuracy and an easier, swifter movement. “That’s exactly it, Cupcake, you got this.”

Caitlyn grins a delighted, flattered little grin that Vi doesn’t really get to see much, and Vi’s heart clenches with rebellious pleasure at the sighting.

They practice together on and off for the rest of the afternoon, and when Caitlyn gets tired Vi takes over for a while. Vi feels most like herself here, her knuckles kissing the same old brown blood stains on the same old green punching bag, and she feels that sheriff-shaped opening in her chest growing another inch wider.

Maybe it’s that it actually feels safe to let this woman see her with her guard so lowered. Maybe it’s that Caitlyn feels like she belongs in the places where Vi is most at home.

For sure it’s that Vi catches her smiling, catches her watching, catches her with her own guard down.

 

**Undetectable**

Vi is pretty sure of her gaydar, most days. Every girlfriend she’s ever had pinged it immediately, and plenty of people besides who turned out to be from her side of the street. It’s a great guide for when to flirt, when to crush her developing crushes, and when to pay very, very close attention to the undercurrent of a conversation. She puts a lot of confidence in her ability to pick out the people who swing that way.

So it’s a damn shame that the gorgeous, gorgeous Sheriff doesn’t set it off at all.

Not that it would change anything, if she were. She’s older, smarter, prettier, and waaaay more figured out. She probably has a secret fiancé and plans for babies that are perfectly timed based on the science of fertility and the schedule of her work and her eventual plans for retirement. She’s the sort of woman who probably has names, hobbies and careers picked out for the exact number of offspring she wants (Vi thinks two, two sounds right for Caitlyn) and has all the puzzle pieces set out carefully, ready to be laid where they belong when the time is right.

Nobody in the office really talks about Cait’s love life, and that’s a mark of the professionalism that she radiates and instills in her employees. She’s The Boss, right, and it just isn’t appropriate to wonder about what The Boss does in her spare time.

But Vi does wonder. She shouldn’t. She really shouldn’t, there’s no point because Caitlyn is very, very clearly straight and almost certainly has a secret fiancé who looks fantastic in a tux and has a stable job like something in banking or teaching and probably coaches a kids’ sports team in his spare time.

Again, she has to remind herself, it’s not like anything would be different if Caitlyn were capable of being interested in the ladies. She might not even be interested in romance at all, really. Married to her job kind of woman, that Cait. Maybe she doesn’t seem to have a significant other because she doesn’t _want_ one, and dammit Vi needs to respect that.

She needs to stop letting her eyes flick down at those perfect runner’s legs when they’re in the middle of a debriefing. She needs to stop letting her mind reconjure those legs late at night alone in her apartment.

It is super, super inappropriate to be lusting after her employer and – yes, she’ll admit it – her friend. Hell, probably her best friend, these days. They spend so much time together because of work, and Cait is always there until crazy hours, and Vi is usually there with her. It’s easy to lose track of time when she gets caught up in Cait’s dedication to a case. Since when was she such a workaholic?

Well, duh - since she got this job. It’s the only real job she’s ever cared about, working for the only boss she’s ever liked and respected.

And she is going to screw that up if she keeps eyeballing said boss whenever her back is turned.

But there’s just enough friendly, playful chemistry between them that Vi can’t shut it down like she usually does when she starts to get too invested in someone who doesn’t reciprocate. She can swear sometimes Caitlyn looks at her in a way no straight girl ever would. She can swear sometimes there’s a flirty undertone in her smirking remarks.

But there’s no way. Absolutely no way. Vi is 100% sure that Caitlyn is as straight as an arrow and likely as interested in dating as a Zaunite is in crafting a comprehensive environmental impact policy.

Also, Cait needs to get out of her brain. Where did the phrase “comprehensive environmental impact policy” even come from, if not from Cait?

Vi needs to get over this crush. She’s pretty sure “don’t crush on your straight girl best friend” was the big takeaway lesson of ages thirteen to fifteen.

**Flirt**

They’re out at a bar, and this isn’t unusual. Vi likes grabbing drinks with the boys from the station, and Friday nights when she doesn’t have a shift the next morning are the ideal time to cut loose and enjoy the more casual individuals of Piltover’s brass.

What’s unusual is that Caitlyn has joined them. Vi’s been working at the station for nearly half a year now and she hasn’t seen the boss come out for drinks even once. It must be weird, because the vibe is different at their table, the boys seem just as unnerved by it as she is, even if they’re trying hard to act normal.

But here she is, sitting at the end of the table with, yes, an actual beer in her hand.

She always struck Vi as more of a wine drinker, really. Fruity mixed drinks, maybe.

Cait catches her looking, and it’s all Vi can do to hold the eye contact, grin, and lift her drink towards the woman. “Good to see you’re finally learning to take it easy now and then, Cupcake.” The informal nickname slips out before Vi has time to wonder if maybe she shouldn’t call The Sherriff that in front of her subordinates.

Ah, but hell, if she’s out for a beer with the gang, she’s oughta expect to be treated like one of the gang.

Vi tries not to let her heart rate elevate when Caitlyn winks at her across the table.

“It was nice of you to invite me,” the Sherriff says, with a smile that looks dangerously like a smirk. Hm, true, Vi supposes she did throw Cait a casual invite to tag along. She just wasn’t expecting her to accept it – she never does.

She left her hat at the office, Vi can’t help but notice, and it makes her much less identifiable in a crowd, and makes her seem a little more human, at home sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with the grunts and the paper pushers and the common street patrol.

The rest of them relax more and more as Caitlyn sits there and drinks her beer and laughs at jokes and tells a couple of her own.

Vi finds herself wound more and more tightly.

In a good way. In a fun way.

In a way where she probably should slow down on the drinks, because she’s sure she shouldn’t be grinning at her boss as much as she is, but she’s carefully cultivated an image of a tough-as-nails tank when it comes to pub nights and she has a reputation to maintain.

And man, she is kind of having fun. Normally on these social get-togethers there isn’t someone gorgeous to sneak glances at, to perform for.

Vi is at the top of her game. She gets just a little tipsy, just a little loud, just a little cocky. She sprawls in her chair, she rests her muscular arms on the tabletop, she doles out hearty laughs and suggestive eyebrow waggles. She’s best friends with everyone.

She tells a joke about Bilgewater women that makes Charlie laugh so hard he gets beer suds out his nose, and when Vi flicks her eyes over to Caitlyn to see her reaction, the woman is looking right at her with her glass at her lips and her expression settled into the cool half-smile she gets on her face right before she pulls the trigger on a perfectly lined up snipe.

Vi gets goosebumps and can’t stop the confident smirk that blooms on her own face in reply. Neither one looks away. Caitlyn finishes her sip with her blue eyes locked on Vi, and then sets the beer down gently, so carefully in control. It’s too much for Vi, whose everything is buzzing with alcohol and adrenaline, and she turns her attention back to Charlie to tease him for getting his snot beer all over himself.

She hopes Cait starts coming out to these things more often.

 

 

**Vices**

There’s something about her smirk that makes everything inside of Vi start to glow with heat. Master detective that she is, Caitlyn figures out what’s going on inside of Vi’s head before she ever has the guts to admit it to herself. She grins too big when she defies Caitlyn’s orders, and gives in too willingly when the orders don’t actually disagree with her personal philosophy.

It’s not the stuff shouted in the heat of combat or snapped at Vi’s retreating back when she slips out of the station to break things instead of doing it by the book. It’s the “pass me that screwdriver” and the “sit down” and the smirking “are you coming?”. It’s the playful challenge that crackles between them when their friendship dances on knowing smiles, it’s the way Vi stops pretending to disagree with everything Cait says whenever she’s got a couple beers in her system.

It’s the way she goes out and buys a slinky dress without any hesitation when Caitlyn invites her to a fancy dinner with local politicians and tells her to pick up something pretty in dark colours.

The chemistry has been there for months, but this is beyond romance. This is more dangerous than wanting to sleep with Caitlyn. This is wanting to surrender to her. Vi’s never done that, not with anyone, but Caitlyn makes her want to try. She trusts her, strangely enough.

It’s the damn smirk. The damn eyes, always paying too much attention to detail.

They court over coffees and paperwork, over hextech repairs and late night dinners in the station. Their attraction to each other is one part slinky dress to three parts rough hands and toned biceps, and both of them tumble pretty quickly from mutual respect to mutual affection to mutual desire.

 Vi forgets how it starts, exactly, but it’s the eyes she remembers, the eyes that hold her, that touch her, that capture her, that dominate her.

“Look at me,” Caitlyn says, in the heat of things, and the command sets fire to every cell in Vi’s body, and it’s simultaneously the hardest and easiest thing she’s ever done to force herself to meet that intense gaze. Vi knows they’re blue, but she’s never dared until this moment to look so long and so openly, and she feels utterly vulnerable and utterly safe.

That’s when she lets go of the tough guy act, allows her defenses to slip from her face and off to the side, and gives Caitlyn full access to a part of her mind she never expected would see the light of day.

She trembles, and she recognizes in Caitlyn something similar – a heavy swallow, an earnest smile. Caitlyn reaches out and strokes her face, traces the letters proudly inked on her cheek, and sweeps away her ability to think coherently.

“That’s my good girl,” she whispers, cupping her jaw, and Vi is addicted from the first heady hit.

 

**Symbol**

It seems like the most natural thing in the world to Vi to wrap Caitlyn up in her arms and cover her laughing face with kisses, so when her girlfriend pulls away and shrugs her off, the hurt of rejection is sudden and unexpected. Vi frowns at her, wondering what’s wrong, what she’s done to upset her, but Caitlyn has her unreadable poker face on and has returned to the actual game of poker that they are, in fact, supposed to be playing.

It bothers Vi for the rest of the game.

She was excited for this charity ball casino thing. Even if she’d usually rather play cards in a smoky basement with a group of old friends and bottlecaps for chips, this night was one she expected to be fun. She’s supposed to be smiling and laughing and getting drunk in a fancy dress with her incredibly stunning girlfriend who she still kind of can’t believe is her girlfriend. She’s supposed to be raising money for street kids and reeling in awe at the fact that she’s come from being a street kid herself to rubbing elbows with the richest people in Piltover.

Instead she’s fighting off a foul mood and trying not to make it obvious that she’s upset because Caitlyn won’t touch her, won’t even so much as brush their ankles together the way they do working late in the office when they still need to focus but can’t resist being close. Vi is willing to believe it’s her imagination after the first one, but when Caitlyn effortlessly slides away from her fingers to go talk to someone or to watch a game at another table every time Vi tries to settle a hand on her lower back, Vi knows for sure she’s being punished for something.

If Caitlyn doesn’t want her around tonight, that’s fine. She’s perfectly capable of having fun without her.

“Need a refill,” she mutters, turning and leaving Caitlyn at the roulette wheel she’s just put chips down on, knowing she’ll be rooted to the spot at least until the chattering ball has come to a stop. Vi heads to the bar and switches from wine to beer. She takes a long pull from the glass before she turns to pick a new destination. There, in the corner, some of the guys from the station she gets along with. She takes her drink there and clenches her jaw, battling down the emotion. She won’t be played with. Either Cait wants her near or she doesn’t, and since her actions say she doesn’t, Vi isn’t going to stick around where she isn’t welcome.

“Hey handsome gentlemen,” she declares, butting in on her coworkers’ game and grinning her best grin at them. She is fine. Totally fine. “Who’s winnin’?”

She stays there for as long as she can stand to, trying not to make anything of the fact that Caitlyn doesn’t come find her right away. She does, eventually, and Vi can only feel angry at the betrayal of her emotions when her gut does a tortured flop at the distinctive sound of her footstep and her presence at her shoulder.

“Having fun?” Caitlyn asks, tone unreadable. Vi doesn’t look at her but the guys across the table smile up at their Sheriff, unaware of any tension or drama.

“A blast,” Vi chirps, proud of herself for her excellent acting skills. “I had no idea Sam looked so fine in a bow tie. I had no idea Sam even _owned_ a bow tie.”

“Very dapper,” Caitlyn agrees, and Vi watches her put a hand on the back of her chair from the peripherals of her vision. It would have been so easy for her to put that hand on Vi’s shoulder. She _must_ be upset with Vi for something.

Vi finishes off the last mouthful of beer in her glass. “Think I’m gonna grab another, boys,” she says, faking a macho sort of nonchalance that she definitely doesn’t feel.

“I need another too. I’ll come with you,” Caitlyn says, taking a step back when Vi rises from her chair.

Vi doesn’t reply. They trudge to the bar in awkward silence, and now Vi knows Caitlyn saw through her façade of happiness. Damn her ability to read people. Damn her for this passive aggressive I’m-not-touching-you bullshit.

The plummet in her heart that comes with revisiting her anger reminds Vi that she’s more hurt than furious and more sad than annoyed. She just wants her girlfriend to stop being distant. She feels deeply alone without the reassurance of her affection, and it’s terrifying how fast they got to this point where she physically feels like she needs Caitlyn’s unspoken approval and fondness to be able to enjoy a night of drinking and gambling.

“On second thought, I need a smoke,” she mutters, changing direction suddenly, headed for the door. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

Caitlyn hates when she smokes, and she’s gotten closer to cracking the habit than she’s ever been before, but right now all she wants is to fall back on a familiar crutch. Vi isn’t really craving the nicotine so much as she’s craving the excuse to stand outside in the cool evening mist with strangers she doesn’t have to pretend to be happy around.

“I could use some fresh air,” Caitlyn says, and follows her. Vi tenses. So much for an escape.

“Not gonna get any, hanging around the smokers.”

“I was under the impression that you had quit.”

“I did. I was just gonna find someone to bum one off of.” She thinks about making a joke about how nobody would turn her down, not in this swanky dress, but her heart isn’t in it.

They’re halfway between the crowds and the back door, and nobody is around them, and that’s when Caitlyn chooses to press the issue.

“What’s bothering you, Vi?”

The question makes the enforcer bristle. “What’s bothering _me_? What’s bothering _you_? You’re the one suddenly giving me the cold shoulder.”

“Hang on, where is this coming from?” Caitlyn stops, and damn her, Vi stops too. Her jaw clenches ever tighter, her fists ball up, and she’s intensely aware of the fact that anyone looking will be able to tell they’re having a fight about something based purely on her body language.

“You’ve been completely off all night. You won’t look at me, you won’t touch me. If you’re mad at me for somethin’ just fuckin’ _tell_ me, Cait.”

“Oh,” Caitlyn breathes, letting her carefully neutral expression slip into something more apologetic, more alarmed. “I wasn’t even thinking about that, not really.”

“What _are_ you thinking about, then? If you’re so _distracted_ you can’t even remember we’re supposed to be dating.” Vi’s hurt wells up and spills out of her as venom. In public, anger is always safer than vulnerability, and this is about as public as it gets. The dress that started the night making her feel sexy and desirable now leaves her feeling cold, foolish, and bare.

“No, Vi, that’s not what I mean.” Caitlyn reaches for her hand and Vi’s arm goes taut as her mind wavers between wanting to spitefully wrench away and wanting to grab on as tight as she possibly can. “I’ve been a public figure all my life. I’m a politician’s daughter. I’m the head of the justice department. I’ve never been in the habit of… being terribly demonstrative, when I’m somewhere highly visible.”

Vi feels like she’s been punched, and it must be showing on her face, because Caitlyn’s expression becomes even more concerned.

“I don’t mean that I’m ashamed of you. I’m not at all. I’ve never been more proud of any partner – in police work _or_ in my private life.”

“So then why are you acting like you don’t want to be seen with me,” Vi forces out, wishing the question had been a bark and not a whimper.

“I’m not really sure how to prove it to you, but this is actually,” Caitlyn laughs a soft, astonished, unhappy sort of laugh, “this is very much me flaunting you. I’ve never been comfortable with public displays of affection. I probably should have had this conversation with you before it came to this, but it’s been so long and I’d honestly forgotten that different people have… different needs, when it comes to this sort of thing.” She gives Vi’s hand a little squeeze, and it seems a paltry offering.

“I promise I’m not angry with you, or even that I’m doing it deliberately. I’m not the sort of person who knows how to be… so open. You’re much braver than I am, in that respect.”

“You don’t want them to know you’re gay?” Vi asks, a bit baffled to imagine Caitlyn being afraid of political backlash or gossip.

“Most of the people here have known for years that I’m not partial to one gender over the other,” Caitlyn corrects, tactfully. “It’s more that I don’t want them to know that I’m…”

“Human,” Vi supplies, and Cait nods, and everything clicks into place. Symbols of strength aren’t supposed to go on dorky coffee dates and smother their partner in giggly kisses and fall in love – not that they’ve said Those Words to each other just yet, not that Vi has let herself think it yet.

“I’m sorry,” Caitlyn murmurs, and strokes the knuckle of Vi’s thumb in the first gesture that has felt natural all night. “I ought to have warned you that it… isn’t something I allow myself to do, for the most part.”

Vi is relieved, on the one hand, that it’s not that Cait is being angry or trying to punish her or isn’t feeling it anymore. On the other, the thought of never, ever getting to touch her out in public is one that makes her wonder, very briefly, if this is going to be worth the effort. Can she be with someone who treats her like a coworker, not a lover, whenever they leave the privacy of one of their homes?

“Okay,” she says, even if she doesn’t feel completely okay.

Cait looks at her, reading her, and Vi tries to make eye contact but can’t bear it for more than a heartbeat.

“This really bothers you,” Caitlyn says, surprise at the edge of her gentle tone. Vi is both frustrated that she couldn’t hide it and glad that she didn’t have to say it.

“Yeah,” she admits, scuffing her stupid fancy shoe on the stupid fancy floor. “I dunno, I guess I just… I like to be… open, and, yanno. I like to be near the people I’m with. I’m kinda a physical person.” Vi looks up and Cait is gazing at her with a look of sincere, sheepish adoration that is so different from the apologetic slump of earlier that Vi finds she can’t look away.

“Of course you are. I know you are. It’s one of the things I really enjoy about you. Do you think that maybe we can find a compromise?”

“Compromise how?”

“Well… I suppose there’s no reason we couldn’t hold hands.”

Hand holding. It’s… a start. An incredibly sanitized start. Vi glances at the crowd off people off by a bar and gestures with a jerk of her chin at a graying, portly diplomat and his steely looking wife. Caitlyn follows her eyes. The man has his arm around the woman’s waist, and the woman has her hand on his shoulder. “Somethin’ like that okay?” Vi asks, her words heavy with the fear of rejection, with the reluctance to even admit how much she wants to be touching Caitlyn all the time.

Cait watches them for a while.

“Sure. I can’t promise I’ll remember not to be so hands-off, but if it’s important to you, I see no reason not to try. Just because it’s habit doesn’t mean it can’t be tweaked to accommodate changing circumstances, after all. I can promise to work on it.”

Vi smiles. “Cool,” she croaks.

“Do you still want to go outside?” Cait gives her hand another little squeeze.

“No,” she says, relieved to find she means it.

“Well, then perhaps you’d be so kind as to escort me back to the bar?” She drops Vi’s hand and turns towards their destination, waiting with a tentative smile. Vi exhales, trying to expel all of the fears and insecurity and dark thoughts, offers the same smile back at Caitlyn, and then fits her palm gingerly against the small of the woman’s back.

This time, Caitlyn doesn’t move away.

“Pip pip,” Vi mutters, “Tally ho, m’yes, quite. To the bar!”

Caitlyn laughs.

Compromise. Compromise is good.

 

**Downtime**

  
Vi’s arms are aching as soon as she hears the cell door latch click closed. She hates getting called in for domestics.  
  
She nods her thanks to the late shift guard and forces her feet to move in the direction that will take her to the office, resisting the allure of the path to the front door. Shit, she’d love nothing more than to trade paperwork for greasy takeout and a crash landing onto her mattress, but she’s gotta at least pretend to start filling out the report.  
  
The light is on in Cait’s office, and Vi isn’t surprised. A little worried, because Caitlyn was in that room working on a case when she first came in this morning, too. Hard to tell if she even went home last night. Vi passes through empty workspaces until she gets to the disaster zone that is hers, settling into her chair. It creaks loudly at the rude intrusion, ancient, unpliable thing that it is, but there’s no reaction from the sheriff’s door.

  
Slowly, now that the adrenaline is gone and her muscles feel reluctant and battered with every movement, she removes herself from her gauntlets. Vi sits there for a moment with her sweaty arms draped limply over her lap, chilly now that they’re exposed to the air. Inhale, exhale. The job’s done. The asshole’s in the clink, and those kids and their mom are safe.  
  
Until he makes bail. Until he serves time and then goes back to them.  
  
Inhale, exhale. They’re safe for now. It’s all she can do. Just gotta keep pushing forward.  
  
Her eyes flick down to the desk. Somewhere in there – she knows exactly where – is a stack of forms waiting to be filled out. Vi contemplates the immense effort required to lean forward and search them out from under the folder with the notes on that new gang graffiti. Just thinking about it makes her sure her hands are still elbow-deep in hundred-pound robot arms, for all she’s able to lift them.  
  
Screw it, she’ll do it in the morning.  
  
She pushes herself up from the cranky chair and wanders to Cait’s door. Six months ago she would have knocked; she doesn’t now.  
  
“Hey Cupcake. You’re working late,” Vi says, hoping the smile she’s too tired to force is at least showing in her eyes.  
  
Caitlyn looks up from whatever she’s scouring for insight. “Am I? What time is it?”  
  
“Around three,” Vi says, shutting the door behind her with her shoulder blades and leaning into the frame. Her lover looks as worn out as she feels. “Any progress?”  
  
The detective glances down at the notes and then up around the room at the photos she’s pinned in various places and stuck notes to. “If I’m being perfectly honest, I’m not sure.” She pushes her chair – a much nicer chair than Vi’s, but those are the perks of seniority – out from the desk, straightening her posture. “Anybody left in the station?”  
  
“Just Mick on the cells and Sam on the front desk.”  
  
“Mm,” she muses, then pats her knee. “Come here.”  
  
Vi finds it easier to smile now. She pulls herself away from the door and slips around Caitlyn’s desk, enduring the burn of her aching thighs to lower herself and sit at the foot of Cait’s chair. Vi’s brow finds Caitlyn’s knee, and her eyes close with the simple pleasure of the contact. The hand in her hair draws out the last leg of energy needed to push her smile to a quiet grin.  
  
They sit like this for a while and don’t say anything. It’s serene in a way Vi’s never known with anybody else, just sitting at Cait’s feet getting her hair stroked. After a while Caitlyn works her fingers under the leather strap of Vi’s goggles and gently pulls them off her head, setting them on the desk. Vi leans in, cracking her eyes open and tilting her head back to look at her, smile at her. Caitlyn smiles back with a warmth that makes this office feel like as much of a home as any living room or kitchen or bedroom.  
  
Cait runs her knuckles down the shadow painted along the path of Vi’s jaw and neck and collarbone. She bends down and Vi closes her eyes so that she can kiss her eyelids with her butterfly-soft touch.  
  
“How was your day?” Caitlyn asks, finally, returning to carding her fingers through Vi’s hair.  
  
“Had a domestic,” Vi says, and that’s enough of an explanation. She signed up for taking down crime rings and giving violent offenders a taste of their own medicine, for fighting corruption and protecting innocents. She hadn’t thought about the job description beyond that, and she’s found pretty quickly that some calls are a lot more emotionally taxing than others – and a lot less black and white when it comes to whether or not someone deserves a face full of steel.  
  
Caitlyn seems to know all of this without Vi ever saying it, like she does about so much Vi doesn’t say out loud. Her hands find Vi’s shoulders and seek out the tension there. The first few turns of her thumbs are actually quite painful, and Vi clenches up until the movements soften just a hair and find less tender spots to start with. By the fifth and sixth squeezes the sensation has transitioned from unpleasant to heavenly and she groans and surrenders into the touch.  
  
“You’re the best,” she breathes.

 

**Cupcake**

Rough feet on cold linoleum, the edge of pink frills a line that brushes across the middles of her thighs, nipples against a stiff fabric never intended to interact directly with bare chests, and the apron coming tight as her lover's hands gingerly work the strings into a bow.

Hands splayed obediently on a counter top.

Eyes fixed on an empty mixing bowl, mind rooted in her lower back where the string nestles presumptuously, loosely holding the garment in place, daring her to object.

The throb of the pulse in her neck against the leather reminder of her lover's claim.

Caitlyn reaches around her, unclips the chain leash, kisses her ear, her neck, her bare shoulders. The leash rustles in its quiet metallic way when she lowers her hand. Vi exhales hard. Goosebumps prickle along her arms and back.

Behind her, Cait strokes a finger along the line of the apron string, then follows its dangling bow down, down, over, until she's smoothly claimed one cheek of Vi's naked ass with the barely-there grasp of her palm and fingers.

Vi stares at the mixing bowl, but does not see it.

“You'd better be able to focus, love. If they don't turn out right, I know it won't be my instructions at fault.”

Vi swallows. “Yes ma'am,” she utters, devoured alive by what torture this performance is. She's so out of her element here, and that makes her vulnerable, so in need of direction.

It's amazing they didn't think to try this game sooner.

 

 

**Priorities**

Her lover’s gaze is distant, her thoughts somewhere far from their warm bed. Vi tries to draw her out of her own mind and back into reality, because it unnerves her when Caitlyn gets so fixated on her work, and she places a flurry of little wake up calls against her shoulder.

“Whatcha thinkin’ about?” Vi murmurs, stroking her arm.

“Nothing in particular,” is the answer, and it’s an answer Vi knows isn’t true. This answer means her mind is in a dark alley searching for a body she knows she saw fall, scouring cold graffitied walls for even a fleck of blood that she would never find.

“You’re thinking about C again,” Vi scowls, “I thought you said you were gonna let it go.”

“I absolutely did not say that,” the sheriff answers, her tone terse. She turns her head around to capture Vi’s gaze, to demonstrate her seriousness on the subject. “Vi, love, I can’t just drop my responsibilities as an officer of the law because it didn’t go my way once. What I told you was that I’d make sure not to over-focus my energy on him in a way that was detrimental to my other cases, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a priority.”

“This isn’t about your responsibilities. He’s not even dangerous! He’s just a burglar pissing off the ass-clenching Demacian highborns who’d find something else to be pissy about even if you nailed him.”

“I have an obligation to capture him.”

“You have an _obsession_ with capturing him.”

“It’s my job. Don’t fault me for taking this seriously. You weren’t there.” Caitlyn extracts herself from Vi’s arms and sits up on the edge of the bed, leaning her face into her hands.

“We just wrapped a murder case, Cait. We put someone behind bars that was actually hurting people. Now is exactly when you should feel allowed to take a breather, take a break from thinking about the stupid C guy.”

“I don’t control how I feel about this, Vi. I’m sorry I’m not fully present tonight but that’s just the way it is.”

There’s a hurt silence that brews between them. Vi does her best to ignore the paranoid fear that she hasn’t excited Caitlyn since she stopped being something to chase. Her thoughts are strung taut between anger and resignation, and she says nothing.

Letting herself be so invested in what this woman thinks of her is a quick path to a broken heart. Since when was she so jealous, so insecure? As if that fear would do anything to counteract what she’s already allowed herself to feel, anything to close the doors that have already been opened.

 So Vi shrugs, and rolls over, and tries not to let herself brood on it. Maybe this will all seem like a non-issue in the morning.

 

**Bruised Knuckles**

“Those things are so hard on your hands,” Caitlyn murmurs, gently capturing Vi’s palm where it rests, half submerged in soapy water, against her stomach. The brawler leans back into her dear detective and allows her eyelids to droop shut.

“Gotta use my fists to throw punches,” she mutters, as if this is somehow the most elegant of defenses, and tries not to wince as Caitlyn’s hands explore the bruises and cuts and calluses on hers.

“I should pay more attention to them,” she says against Vi’s ear, and although it isn’t meant to awake that certain hunger in Vi it definitely does. “I’m amazed they aren’t constantly infected.”

“You can pay as much attention to’m as you want,” Vi says, twisting around in the tub to kiss her and making the water slosh noisily. “So long as it doesn’t get in the way of me hitting people.”

Caitlyn smirks at Vi, and Vi smirks at Caitlyn.

They kiss again.

Caitlyn’s knack for remembering little details is, as always, impeccable. A jar of ointment manifests on their bedside table, and taking her gauntlets off suddenly changes from Vi’s least favourite to most favourite part of the day.

**Ink**

The patterns Cait draws on Vi’s arms while she’s still half asleep follow a familiar route. This one is a hextech hummingbird that bleeds into a labyrinth of gear teeth, and just beyond her elbow will inevitably become the outline of wrench and screwdriver below a tacky, regrettable skull.

Sleepily, Vi kisses the back of her neck and squeezes her gently. “Ever think about getting one?”

“Me with a tattoo? I’m not so sure about that.” Cait’s floating between awake and asleep, the same as Vi, and her carefully tailored and usually prim voice is deliciously morning-roughed.

“Seem to like mine s’much,” Vi grins against her warm skin.

“Because they look good on you. They suit you.” Five foci of tingling touch caress her bicep. Vi fills with warmth. Caitlyn makes her feel so strong, so attractive, so desirable.

“You could pull it off,” she muses, without too much seriousness. They don’t have to get up for work for another hour, and this place where she’s drifting in bedsheets and the feel of Cait beside her is the best thing she can think of.

“Mmm, you think so? What would it be of?” Cait’s at her wrist now, stroking invisible artwork on top of what’s already there.

“Somethin’ awesome,” Vi responds eloquently. “Somethin’ that’s like, meaningful and stuff. Somethin’ beautiful n’smart, like you.”

“Meaningful, and beautiful, and smart? That’s a tall order.” Vi loves the sound of Cait’s smile.

“Don’t forget awesome,” Vi murmurs, smiling back.

“Of course, mustn’t forget awesome.”

Vi forgets awesome; she forgets the whole conversation. She forgets it until a month later she’s talking over dinner – takeout scarfed down in Cait’s office at the station, as usual – about her plans for a new tattoo, and how she’s trying to decide between one idea and another idea, when Caitlyn coyly asks for Vi’s opinion on something.

The Sheriff opens a drawer and produces a piece of paper for Vi to look at. It’s a meticulous drawing of the inner mechanism of the first knuckle of the index finger of Vi’s right gauntlet. Vi recognizes it immediately and is shocked to see it represented so elegantly stylized into two dimensions. She’s impressed but uncertain of Cait’s intentions.

“That’s awesome,” she gapes, “but what’s it for?”

“I thought it might make an interesting pattern for a tattoo.”

“You planned out my next tattoo for me?” Vi asks, wary.

“I was thinking this one could be for me,” Caitlyn says, and holy shit she’s _totally blushing_ and it’s the most adorable thing Vi has ever seen. “I wanted to make sure it was okay with you first. It’s… awfully personal.”

And it _is_ awfully personal. Nobody but Cait and Vi will ever know what the sequence of hextech parts means at a glance, but Caitlyn might as well be branding Vi’s name onto herself. Vi swallows.

“Where were you thinking you’d have them put it?”

“Somewhere only my girlfriend will get to see it.”

Vi exhales.

“Your girlfriend is one lucky bitch.”

**Don’t Look Back**

Vi was so sure that she would never see her again. What they’d had was chaotic, erotic, as abusive as it was incredible, and distinctly short-lived. That chapter in her life is marked by bad decisions and brutal consequences, unbelievable highs and terrifying lows. She can look back now with a kind of head-shaking nostalgia that comes with having survived a time that was so masochistically self-destructive she’s still not sure if it could have actually been all that bad.

Those nights were danger and fire and rough sex, the confusion of obsession with love and of lust with compatibility. She thinks back to it now and most of what her mind provides is the bottomless pit of self-hatred nurtured by never-ending mockery and the rush of skin on skin and napalm in her veins and the best fuck she’s ever had in her life.

They worked so well together at first. She loved Vi’s style, she said. She loved the targets she picked for her rage, loved the fearless violence with which she took what she wanted from her enemies. And fuck, Vi can hardly blame herself for wanting the smirking, cocky firecracker who purred and bullied her way into Vi’s bed. Together they were unstoppable, unkillable, and utterly unpredictable. When they teamed up, Vi’s plans were five times as successful, if maybe five times as destructive.

She should have really known Jinx would get bored. She should have known that commitment to a relationship was about as likely as commitment to a noble cause, with that girl. She lost interest in helping the needy (“and all that useless bleeding heart bullshit”, were her smirking words) and then, when Vi wouldn’t be swayed from her mission, lost interest in Vi.

Vi was young, and stupid, and so, so infatuated. Jinx was younger still, but at the time she’d seemed so wise, so street-savvy, so clever and so fucking _alive_.

It didn’t help that Vi hadn’t come to terms with the part of her that liked taking orders in the bedroom, that she decided if it made her motor purr then it couldn’t possibly be unhealthy or unwanted.

Now, of course, it seems perfectly clear to her that Jinx had never treated her like a partner. She’d been a plaything, and she’d convinced herself that she _liked_ being a plaything, was the messed up part of it.

And when she left, she left Vi with about five new bad habits, a pitifully crippled sense of self-esteem, and a burning bitterness she was still working on repairing. It wasn’t Vi’s only shit relationship, but it was probably the worst. Jinx had been unstable at the time, even if she hadn’t escalated things to the point of destroying treasuries just for the hell of it, and she’d ripped through Vi’s life like a nasty addiction and stolen what little stability Vi had built around herself.

But she’d been gone, and with the flighty, un-pin-down-able nature of her ferocious ex-lover, Vi had really, sincerely expected to never, ever see her ever again. It had been the best thing about the whole messy ending.

So when Caitlyn comes to her that third night when she can’t bring herself to join her in bed, finds her sitting on the floor of their kitchen with her back against the oven, and asks her the question she’s been carefully avoiding since the first time she asked it and Vi blew up at her, Vi closes her eyes and tries not to think about the roaring glory of being nineteen and on top of the world, so sure of your invincibility as you dive into the most rock-and-roll life you can possibly imagine for yourself.

“You know her. From before.”

It’s not a question anymore.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Caitlyn joins her on the floor. Vi avoids touching her. This is unusual, but Cait respects the space Vi is tacitly asking for.

Vi is waiting for the lecture. _Any insight you can provide will help us to track her down_ , Cait should be saying. _Any knowledge about who this previously unheard of criminal is essential and must not be kept secret,_ she would have every right to declare. But she isn’t. She isn’t pushing, she isn’t saying anything, she isn’t trying to coax it out of Vi with affection or bully it out of Vi with logic.

It hits her that she’s expecting Cait to react the way Jinx would have.

Her jaw clenches and the tears are there so suddenly all she can hear is the trembling bass of their threat to fall.

This is not then. Cait is not Jinx. That was years ago.

Just because Jinx is back in her life doesn’t mean Vi has to be her victim again, doesn’t mean she has to go back to those shitty coping mechanisms and icy walls.

Vi exhales, and the sound crackles and shakes with the warning of an incoming storm. Cait’s eyes flick her way, and Vi is afraid to look directly at her.

“I love you,” Caitlyn says, keeping her hands to herself, “and whatever happened, you don’t have to tell me, but you know I’m here for you to listen, without judgement, if that’s what you want. When you joined the force, all your past crimes were forgiven. Nothing you did in that lifetime will ever change the way you are treated in this one.”

Vi breaks down in sobs then and curls into Caitlyn, and she realizes she was more afraid of losing Cait than of somehow getting sucked back into the vortex that is Jinx. Her failure to capture Jinx is not, she has to tell herself, failure to prove that she is strong enough to resist her if she comes calling. It is not failure to prove that she’s better at being a good guy than she ever was at being a bad guy.

She cries into Caitlyn’s lap, and clings to her thighs, and hardly registers the consoling touch on her back. She’s crying because she’s so, so, so relieved that she has Caitlyn, and she has _herself_ \- a new, confident self that she can be proud of. Vi isn’t that dumb nineteen year old anymore.

But fuck, for a couple days there she was so afraid that she might still be.

**Them Moves**

“Your birthday must be coming up soon,” Caitlyn muses, rubbing pensive circles above Vi’s ear, setting her book down limply against the woman’s shoulder. “It’s getting warmer again.”

Vi doesn’t have a birthday in the traditional sense. Growing up, she didn’t have the luxury of a calendar or a doting family to keep track of these sorts of things. Even at a young age, though, she understood that everybody had a birthday, and they had it around the same time every year.

Vi’s birthday is always two weeks after she decides it’s getting nice enough to sit outside in the sun, and it’s always on a Saturday. Two weeks is just enough time to plan something, if she feels like it, and Saturdays are the best time to hold those planned somethings.

She likes that Caitlyn doesn’t question it.

“Mm,” she acknowledges from where she’s settled in Cait’s very literary lap, “you’re right.” Vi thinks about it a bit without opening her eyes, and then says, “My birthday’s three weeks from now.”

“On the Saturday?”

“On the Saturday.”

“What do you want for your birthday this year, love?”

“How about,” she grins into Cait’s hip, “a sexy strip tease?”

Vi doesn’t like asking for physical possessions for presents. She’s trained herself not to want those things or request those things from other people through a lifetime of poverty. She likes to be surprised, anyways.

Caitlyn chuckles.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she says, and lifts her book and goes back to reading.

A week later, Vi comes home from work at an obscenely normal time. It’s only six when she gets in the door, and while a large part of that is because it’s been a slow day, there’s also the fact that Caitlyn took the afternoon off to run some errands. Highly suspicious, and Vi has no doubt that her shenanigans have something to do with the upcoming birthday.

“I’m home!” she shouts into the house, to give her lover time to hide any surprises. She’d hate to spoil a good surprise by moving too quickly into a room where Caitlyn was up to secret things or in the middle of wrapping something. In the past, Cait’s hand-made things for Vi’s birthday, which she knows is a good compromise between Vi’s discomfort with expensive, physical objects as gifts and her fondness for having something to actually give.

“You here, Cupcake?”

She’s just on the last syllable when Cait appears in the front entryway.

“Welcome home,” she says, and there is something eager and hungry in her fast steps as she corners Vi against the door and kisses her hello with more vehemence than she’s used to. Vi kisses back, answering the hand in her hair by wrapping the palm of her entire right gauntlet around Caitlyn’s back and ass. _Mine_ , purrs a giddy little voice in her head.

They’re both breathing hard when Caitlyn finally pulls away. Vi’s stunned expression slides into a smirk.

“What’ve you been doing all afternoon that’s got you so worked up, babe?”

Caitlyn doesn’t answer, only slips a knee between Vi’s thighs and gives her hip a little pulse at just the right angle to have her gasp. She leans in, pressing Vi harder and harder against the door, and then whispers into her ear:

“Gauntlets off and on the bed, on your back, arms and legs spread. _Now_.” Then she glides away and stands, arms crossed, waiting for her to obey.

Vi has never ripped her gauntlets off so fast in her life. She steals glances at Cait as she goes, almost tripping on the threshold of their bedroom in her hurry. She’s got no fucking idea what’s gotten into Caitlyn but her skin is on fire and her mind is whirling in a fog of desire and holy fuck yes best welcome home ever.

She gets to the bed and notices the cuffs are already out, sitting on the corners, waiting for her. Cait’s preplanning only makes Vi hornier, thinking about her lover alone at home just lusting after her, preparing to ravish her. She just about throws herself onto the bed as Caitlyn sidles into the room and makes short work of the restraints. One buckled, two buckled, three, four, and Vi is strapped to the bed still fully clothed and absolutely fucking soaking wet in anticipation.

She’s watching Caitlyn avidly as the woman goes to the dresser where something that isn’t normally there seems to be set up. It takes watching her detective’s clever hands placing the arm to put the pieces together – it’s the record player she normally keeps in her living room and reserves for symphonies while she’s sitting and thinking and reading and stuff. The music that starts up is not a symphony. It’s definitely no kind of gentle string music Vi’s ever heard.

As the record opens with an eager slam of drums and electric guitar, Vi licks her lips and swallows and can’t look away from Caitlyn. The music slides into a steady, jazzy scale that wordlessly narrates the incoming hunter with thrusting percussion and smirking brass and holy fucking fuck Caitlyn is staring into her soul, unbuttoning buttons to the music and moving her hips in magical ways.

She knows all too well what she’s doing to Vi, and it only escalates the confidence and smug sensuality of the way she’s moving, showing off, discarding bits of clothing.

“Ohhhh, _fuck_ ,” Vi murmurs appreciatively as the dress slides free and the music slows down to a teasing, easy grind and there’s Caitlyn at the end of the bed in a brand new set of lingerie and fuck and oh god and her legs and her hips and her tits and Vi cannot _think_ cannot _breathe_ and Caitlyn crawls on top of her and runs hands up her thighs and fuck why is Vi still wearing clothing. Cait settles herself on Vi’s hips and Vi thrusts upwards to meet her with a heated kiss of bodies while their eyes are still locked and they grind together for just half a second before Caitlyn is too far away for Vi to reach and smirking down at her and still moving, writhing, twisting to that music.

She reaches behind herself and Vi hears the bra come unsnapped. Vi whimpers and flicks her hips hungrily against the empty air.

Caitlyn leans in until the brand new bra is right in front of Vi’s face, still on her even if it’s undone.

“Some help, dear?” she purrs, as the music thrums jazzy need through Vi’s groin, and Vi wonders if she’s soaked right through her uniform’s pants as she cranes her neck forward and seizes the extraordinarily expensive looking brassiere between her teeth with a shaky exhale, drawing it off of Caitlyn’s perfect breasts with only her mouth.

Cait smirks down at Vi as she lies there tied to the bed with the bra in her mouth and pauses – still gyrating to the music – to admire her flustered lover. Vi keens at her through the stiff fabric and resists the urge to spit it off the side of the bed. Now is absolutely not the time to earn retribution for misbehaving if she wants the rest of that lingerie to come off.

Looking delighted by Vi’s impatience and rolling her shoulders to the lazy buzz of the guitar line, Cait maintains eye contact and draws her hands up her own thighs, up her stomach, cupping her own breasts, toying with her nipples. She watches Vi, seems to revel in Vi, who cannot tear her eyes away, cannot do anything but groan into the lacy undergarment between her teeth and buck up again with her hips. Fuck, fuck, she wants Cait _so bad_ , wants her in every way possible, and she’s so close and Vi can’t do anything about it but watch her claim victory over Vi’s desire with the slow writhing of her taunting, tempting curves.

She leans in and finally takes the bra away and replaces it with her mouth, and Vi responds to the kiss with ravenous fervor. Lips and tongues and teeth join the dance, and it’s like the doorway greeting multiplied by a hundred and then set on fire. When Cait draws herself back upright it only leaves Vi wanting more.

The music picks up its tempo again and the percussion becomes plucky, still jamming to its steady, established rhythm. Cait slides one knee forward, closer to Vi’s face, and then the other knee, and then the other knee, until she’s danced right up to her and no amount of silky, elaborate fabric can disguise that she’s just as hungry for this as Vi is.

Cait runs her fingers through Vi’s hair. Except for the kiss their gazes have remained locked together this entire time. She watches Vi intently and then her hand becomes a fist and she tugs back sharply in perfect time with a crash of drums and cymbals. Vi gasps, feeling her ability to think stripped away a little more.

Keeping a sharp hold on Vi’s hair, Caitlyn positions her ever-swaying hips at Vi’s mouth, perfectly aligned with the top edge of the panties. Vi waits for the command, her eyes breaking contact at last to flick down to the glorious sight that’s been put directly in front of her face. She might as well be salivating.

“Such self control,” Cait murmurs lovingly. “Such a good girl.” Her voice is so low, so rough, so breathy, Vi can hardly hear it over the record player. “Take them off for me.” Vi reaches forward, mouth parted. “Slowly.”

Vi pauses to swallow heavily. She places a shaky, desperate kiss along the waistband and then gingerly closes her teeth on the top edge of the fabric. As if oblivious to the delicate downwards pull, Caitlyn continues to move her hips to the music, each slow motion thrust forward coming back down with a little less material against her skin. Vi wishes desperately for the use of her hands, and unconsciously brings her bound wrists forward with a jingle and a snap of the metal clasps that hold her leather cuffs to the corners of the frame. Her gaze is fixated on a hip bone but she can hear Caitlyn’s distracted hum of laughter.

She has to let go and reposition her mouth’s grip on one side, then the other, to make further progress, and in her eagerness she forgets the command to go slow.

Caitlyn doesn’t forget, and she tugs sharply on the hair she’s still got trapped in her grip. “Easy girl,” she growls, the master of her own urges.

Vi resumes with a painfully slow pace, and Caitlyn is still fucking gyrating on her face, and fuck fuck fuck she needs to get these goddamn panties off of her and if she only had her hands and fuck she wants her so badly!!

Slowly, slowly, a hair’s width at a time, Vi works the panties down, almost halfway to Caitlyn’s knees.

“Well done, love,” Cait purrs, pulling away to complete the effort by swiftly tugging them the rest of the way, getting one leg out, shaking the garment down the other leg, and then flicking them off the end of her foot to land somewhere unknown and irrelevant.

And then she’s back where she was before, but this time nothing is in her way, and Vi can see her desire, smell her desire, and she can’t help but jut her chin forward, silently begging to feel, to _taste_.

“Would you like me to take your pretty little face for a ride, my dear?”

“Yes ma’am, _yes_ , please, please ma’am,” Vi groans.

Normally, Cait would make her beg a little more. Tonight, she’s not waiting another moment.

Later, when they’re both very sweaty and exhausted and sticky and Vi is still somehow bound to the bed with most of her clothes on, something occurs to Vi as her brain starts to reassemble itself.

“My birthday’s not for another two weeks,” she mumbles, bemused.

“It’s… a funny story, really. I went shopping today to get everything in order ahead of time, and I decided to try everything on, just to make sure it all fit, and the record would start where I wanted it to, and was good quality, and after a test run I… decided to move the schedule ahead a little.” She strokes Vi’s unfixably messy hair. “Don’t worry dear, I’ll have something else for your actual birthday.”

“So you’re saying,” Vi grins, eyebrows raised, “you managed to get yourself too horny to wait two weeks to strip for me.”

“Oh yes, darling. So very aroused,” Cait whispers, and there is _trouble_ in that tone. Her face quirks up into a smirk and she slowwwly sits back up, and then straddles Vi’s still-clothed waist. “Why, I might need to relieve myself just thinking about it.” Vi licks her lips. “Terrible shame you can’t help. If only your hands were free.”

“Hnnn,” Vi whines, clenching and unclenching her fists. Caitlyn’s sadistic attention is riveted to Vi as her fingers begin to revive the flame of her libido again, this time to only the sound of the brawler’s heavy breathing.

"Maybe I oughta try these magical panties on some time, see if they work the same on me," Vi growls, grinning, moving her hips against Caitlyn’s. She’s expecting to be told she’s got enough of a sex drive already without help.

 ”Maybe you should,” Caitlyn replies, her words sweet liquor and clinking ice. “Maybe you’d like to wear them under your uniform to the office for me tomorrow.”

"Fu-huck," she stammers, the smarmy expression falling from her face, grinding with more urgency at the thought.

"That’s what I thought," Caitlyn says, smiling. Tomorrow is going to be sheer torture.

Vi supposes it serves her right.

 

**Sunny Side Up**

Some days Vi isn’t really sure why she joined the stupid League. Sure, she gets to smash heads and – theoretically – help settle political debates without civilian bloodshed, but she’d rather be putting criminals out of business and off the streets any day. She hates that they broadcast the fights, hates that it’s become entertainment for the masses more than anything else. She hates how it acts as a focusing lens for Cait to re-target her attention onto hunting down the mysterious C.

Plus some of the other League Champions are just weird.

After several long days and nights in the arena, there is nothing Vi loves more than to peel out of her grimy gear, have a quick scrub, and then hit the taverns. Today when she steps through the threshold of her favourite establishment, she recognizes a familiar face from the Rift and settles across from the gleaming warrior.

“Not even gonna change out of your armor before you start boozing?” she smirks over the table, catching the eye of the bartender and nodding for her usual.

“Oh, hello Vi,” the woman answers, looking a bit startled. “Well, I haven’t got anywhere to change. I… am not from here.” Vi resists the urge to laugh. Poor Leona in her clanking golden gear clutching her sour Piltover wine is very clearly not from here.

“Coulda asked me or Cait if you needed a place to change. Least we could do after how many times you saved our asses in a flash of glorious light.” Is Vi flirting? Maybe a little bit. Flirting is fun. Besides, she’s heard some interesting rumors about Mount Targon’s golden girl. It’s not often she gets the opportunity to actually have a conversation with her outside of the battlefield.

“That’s very generous of you,” Leona says, and smiles. Vi is pretty sure she spies a crack in that awkward formality and decides tonight’s post-fight entertainment is going to be an attempt to befriend The Radiant Dawn – or at the very least a mission to see what she’s like when she’s hammered.

Vi buys the next round, and Leona buys the round after that, and then Vi makes sure the third round is on her tab, and so on and so forth until finally the conversation migrates from the merits of defense over mobility and the eerie sensation of having a troop of enemy minions suddenly charge at you when you think you’re hidden in the brush into more interesting subjects.

“Okay, no, but like, I’m just saying. I’m just saying. Katarina is smoking hot.”

Leona wrinkles her nose. “She is the worst kind of person.”

“But smoking hot,” Vi insists, leveling a finger at Leona, holding it there, daring her to disagree.

“She has a nice body,” Leona concedes, at last, to Vi’s triumphant crows. “But she’s not my type.”

“No?” Vi pries, face lighting up with mischief. “Who _is_?”

Leona turns her head down to the table, blushes vividly, and takes a big drink of wine.

“I’ve heard,” presses Vi, “that you and Diana used to have a thing.”

Leona almost chokes on her wine. She clears her throat, sets down the cup, and then very clearly enunciates, “The Sun and The Moon do not ever share the sky.”

Vi laughs, delighted and exhausted by Leona’s rigidity, and says, “Wasn’t askin’ about sharin’ the sky – I was askin’ about sharin’ bedsheets.”

Leona confesses with the secret smile she foolishly shares with her cup of wine.

“No waaaay!” Vi shouts, all glee and inebriation. She leans in. “So what happened, exactly?” She’s heard the stories – they’ve all heard the stories – but this might be her only opportunity to hear it right from the source.

“It’s a long story,” Leona says.

“So we’ll order more drinks.”

“It’s… not really a happy story.”

“So we’ll order a whole bottle.”

Leona tells her story, and that night when Vi stumbles home and crawls into bed she clings to Caitlyn with a fierceness that wakes her up and has her instantly clinging back, ready to fend off whatever demons haunt her lover so.

 


End file.
